The Mug Race did its best to answer this situation by making it clear the first corrected time would also be first across the line.
While not perfect, the handicap is given to all boats up front allowing the best corrected time to finish first across the line as well.
I do like this system they run at the Mug Race with the staggered starts. Some boats start as early as 7am (some earlier?) and we got our start (I20) around 10:14am. However, with monos and multis in a mixed fleet, it really tends to favor the multihulls. I think last year they were making some changes to try and even things out a bit but I don't know how that worked.
